ESRB rates new DS Assassin's Creed

The ESRB has revealed that, in addition to the PSP spin-off, another handheld Assassin's Creedgame is on the way -- a DS Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chroniclesfollow-up called Assassin's Creed II: Discovery.Could this be one of the "elements concerning the Assassin's Creed license" to which Yves Guillemot referred?

It sounds less like a direct sequel to the first Assassin's Creed DS game and more like a companion piece to the console Assassin's Creed II, a belief based only on the fact that the ESRB content description notes that it is "set during the Renaissance." The only other useful information in the content description is that it's a "side-scrolling action game," which could mean the same kind of mostly side-scrolling play found in Altair's Chronicles.

We're not surprised that Ubisoft hasn't said or shown anything related to this game. The company was similarly reticent about the first DS Assassin's Creed game -- after announcing it in October 2007, we didn't see a single screenshot until January, a month before its release.